Top Performance: Nature v. Nurture

Research shows that outstanding performance is the product of years of deliberate practice and coaching, not of any innate talent or skill. How did Bill Gates, Wayne Gretzky and Yo Yo Ma become experts? Were they born or made? This is the subject of two beststelling books: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and Bounce by Matthew Syed. Much less popular but far more fundamental is the research that fueled the rampant interest in this topic. Giants in this field are Anders Ericsson and Benjamin Bloom. Here's what they found.

Back in the 1980s, Benjamin Bloom, a professor of education at the University of Chicago, took look at the childhoods of 120 elite performers ranging from music and the arts to mathematics and neurology. Bloom’s work and subsequent research found no correlation between IQ and expert performance in fields such as chess, music, sports, and medicine. The only innate differences that turn out to be significant—and they matter primarily in sports—are height and body size.

Not only do you have to be prepared to invest time in becoming an expert, but you have to start early—at least in some fields. Once, K. Anders Ericsson was asked whether he or any other person could win an Olympic medal if he began training at a mature age. Nowadays, Ericsson replied, it would be virtually impossible for anyone to win an individual medal without a training history comparable with that of today’s elite performers, nearly all of whom started very early.

So what does correlate with success? All the superb performers investigated had practiced intensively, had studied with devoted teachers, and had been supported enthusiastically by their families throughout their developing years. Consistently and overwhelmingly, the evidence showed that experts are always made, not born.

The journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient. The development of genuine expertise requires struggle, sacrifice, and honest, often painful self-assessment. There are no shortcuts. Above all, if you want to achieve top performance as a manager and a leader, you’ve got to forget the folklore about genius that makes many people think they cannot take a scientific approach to developing expertise.

The preceding is an excerpt. For the full article by K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely please email your request to mail@beanstalkcfo.com